Monthly Archives: June 2017

Experts Weigh in on AI and the Singularity – Futurism

Posted: June 7, 2017 at 5:32 pm

In BriefNine experts weighed in on the future of artificialintelligence and machine learning recently for IEEE Spectrum. Theiranswers provide a glimpse into what's coming in the world of AI andwhat to expect from the Singularity. AI Visionaries

Artificial intelligence (AI) is progressing so fast that there are new developments in the field almost every week. The tendrils of AI grow further into human life and continue to rapidly intertwine with our reality, and this process will only accelerate. Some worry about the consequences of a future in which AIs have more capabilities than humans, while some relish this prospect. IEEE Spectrum has just published a special issue for June 2017, which reports on the views of nine visionaries, technologists, and futurists on whats coming in AI.

Each expert was asked, When will we have computers as capable as the brain? Ray Kurzweil thinks this will happen in 2029, while Jrgen Schmidhuber simply agrees that it will be soon, and Gary Marcus estimates that it will happen 20 to 50 years from now. Nick Bostrom predicts within a small number of decades. Rodney Brooks is a little more conservative, estimating 50 to 100 years, while both Robin Hanson and Martine Rothblatt think that it will happen within the 21st century.

Ruchir Puris answer to this question was perhaps the most interesting: A human brain is fundamentally different than being a champion chess, Jeopardy!, or Go player. It is something that entails essential traits like caring, empathy, sharing, ingenuity, and innovation. These human brain traits might prove to be elusive to machines for a long time. . .. Although AIs impact on society will accelerate further. . .it will be a while before we will be able to holistically answer [that] question.

So, How will brainlike computers change the world? Robin Hanson thinks that humans will get rich from robot labor, while Gary Marcus anticipates major advancements in science and medicine and Martine Rothblatt agrees with Kurzweil that we will essentially eventually become downloadable and therefore immortal. Ray Kurzweil sees AI as a massive brain extender, and therefore a problem solver, making every aspect of our lives better. Rodney Brooks thinks making realistic predictions about this isnt possible since its too far off, and instead posits that in 20 years, baby boomers including Kurzweil will be assisted by in-home computers, but wont be immortal. Jrgen Schmidhuber thinks that AIs will be fascinated by the possibilities of space as they become self-motivated and pursue their own goals.

Finally, Do you have any qualms about a future in which computers have human-level (or greater) intelligence? Carver Mead points out that people always fear new technologies, even though history shows that we have continually benefitted from them. Robin Hanson thinks anyone who doesnt have qualms about a change this momentous isnt paying attention, but Martine Rothblatt doesnt have qualms, because she thinks human needs will shape a Darwinian market for robots. Ray Kurzweil thinks we will avoid peril and gain optimally by merging with AI. Nick Bostrom is concerned by the problem of scalable control of AI, while Rodney Brooks says he has no qualms at all, and that qualming is not useful, even for Nick Bostrom. Gary Marcus doesnt see clear solutions to potential problems yet, but thinks that future technologies will provide them.

The experts had different ideas about many things, but there was no dispute about the most important point: the singularity is coming, and its closer than we think.

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Tune Into the Future of Fintech at Exponential Finance This Week – Singularity Hub

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Singularity Universitys Exponential Finance Summit begins today and runs through June 9 in New York, the finance industrys bustling capital. You can tune into the summit as it happens from anywhere with this livestream.

Singularity Hub is also covering the event as it brings together financial and technology leaders from across the industry. From exciting startups like Lemonade and HyperScience to established financial institutions such as BlackRock and Bank of America, well be learning about how emerging technologies are changing the workings of the finance industry and how financial services companies do business.

At the summit, experts will dive into:

Ric Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Services, and Sharon Sputz, director of Columbia Universitys Data Science Institute, will discuss the future of financial advice and investing. Angela Strange, partner at Andreesen Horowitz, will break down exponential technology and insurance, and BlackRocks chief talent officer, Matthew Breitfelder, will take a look at the future of work.

Of course, as usual, well also keep an eye on talks and question-and-answer sessions with Ray Kurzweil, Singularity University cofounder and chancellor, and Peter Diamandis, Singularity University cofounder and chairman.

Be sure to join the conversation on the future of finance in real-time on Twitter with@SingularityHuband@xfinanceor using the hashtag#xfin.

Much of the latest technology driving fintech is still new, and its impact has yet to be fully fleshed outwhich should make for an interesting summit.

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Beyond Politics: Innovating for a Sustainable Future – Singularity Hub

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Singularity University is dismayed by the Trump administrations choice to withdraw from the Paris Accord. Climate change is one of the greatest risks to humankind, and the decisions we make over the next few decades will impact life on earth for thousands of years.

At SU were proud to support the responsible development of exponential technologies, such as AI, robotics, nanotechnology, and digital biology, that may provide solutions to climate change. These exponential technologies should be nurtured in enabling policy environments, but independent of the decisions made by politicians, SU will move forward with our plans to address climate change.

Were proud to see an increase in breakthroughs that greatly improve our stewardship of the planet and global abundance such as in vitro meat production, carbon capture techniques, genetic engineering of climate resilient crops, advances in atmospheric water extraction, and countless others.

While this is a disappointing decision, there are more powerful forces at work. The global response to the federal governments decision has renewed our faith in the common goodness of humankind. Innovation will continue. We will move forward.

We at SU provide access to a deep and broad innovation ecosystem that includes forward thinking corporations (e.g., Deloitte, Google, Lowes), development organizations (e.g., Stockholm Resilience Center, Unicef, World Wide Fund for Nature), and governments around the world. We will continue to work across industries and disciplines to bring abundance to all.

We welcome you to join our bold march into the future.

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No More Playing Games: AlphaGo AI to Tackle Some Real World Challenges – Singularity Hub

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Humankind lost another important battle with artificial intelligence (AI) last month when AlphaGo beat the worlds leading Go player Kie Je by three games to zero.

AlphaGo is an AI program developed by DeepMind, part of Googles parent company Alphabet. Last year it beat another leading player, Lee Se-dol, by four games to one, but since then AlphaGo has substantially improved.

Kie Je described AlphaGos skill as like a god of Go.

AlphaGo will now retire from playing Go, leaving behind a legacy of games played against itself. Theyve been described by one Go expert as like games from far in the future, which humans will study for years to improve their own play.

Go is an ancient game that essentially pits two playersone playing black pieces the other whitefor dominance on board usually marked with 19 horizontal and 19 vertical lines.

Go is a far more difficult game for computers to play than chess, because the number of possible moves in each position is much larger. This makes searching many moves aheadfeasible for computers in chessvery difficult in Go.

DeepMinds breakthrough was the development of general-purpose learning algorithms that can, in principle, be trained in more societal-relevant domains than Go.

DeepMind says the research team behind AlphaGo is looking to pursue other complex problems, such as finding new cures for diseases, dramatically reducing energy consumption or inventing revolutionary new materials. It adds:

"If AI systems prove they are able to unearth significant new knowledge and strategies in these domains too, the breakthroughs could be truly remarkable. We cant wait to see what comes next."

This does open up many opportunities for the future, but challenges still remain.

AlphaGo combines the two most powerful ideas about learning to emerge from the past few decades: deep learning and reinforcement learning. Remarkably, both were originally inspired by how biological brains learn from experience.

In the human brain, sensory information is processed in a series of layers. For instance, visual information is first transformed in the retina, then in the midbrain, and then through many different areas of the cerebral cortex.

This creates a hierarchy of representations where simple, local features are extracted first, and then more complex, global features are built from these.

The AI equivalent is called deep learning; deep because it involves many layers of processing in simple neuron-like computing units.

But to survive in the world, animals need to not only recognize sensory information, but also act on it. Generations of scientists and psychologists have studied how animals learn to take a series of actions that maximize their reward.

This has led to mathematical theories of reinforcement learning that can now be implemented in AI systems. The most powerful of these is temporal difference learning, which improves actions by maximizing expectation of future reward.

By combining deep learning and reinforcement learning in a series of artificial neural networks, AlphaGo first learned human expert-level play in Go from 30 million moves from human games.

But then it started playing against itself, using the outcome of each game to relentlessly refine its decisions about the best move in each board position. A value network learned to predict the likely outcome given any position, while a policy network learned the best action to take in each situation.

Although it couldnt sample every possible board position, AlphaGos neural networks extracted key ideas about strategies that work well in any position. It is these countless hours of self-play that led to AlphaGos improvement over the past year.

Unfortunately, as yet there is no known way to interrogate the network to directly read out what these key ideas are. Instead, we can only study its games and hope to learn from these.

This is one of the problems with using such neural network algorithms to help make decisions in, for instance, the legal system: they cant explain their reasoning.

We still understand relatively little about how biological brains actually learn, and neuroscience will continue to provide new inspiration for improvements in AI.

Humans can learn to become expert Go players based on far less experience than AlphaGo needed to reach that level, so there is clearly room for further developing the algorithms.

Also, much of AlphaGos power is based on a technique called back-propagation learning that helps it correct errors. But the relationship between this and learning in real brains is still unclear.

The game of Go provided a nicely constrained development platform for optimizing these learning algorithms. But many real-world problems are messier than this and have less opportunity for the equivalent of self-play (for instance self-driving cars).

So, are there problems to which the current algorithms can be fairly immediately applied?

One example may be optimization in controlled industrial settings. Here the goal is often to complete a complex series of tasks while satisfying multiple constraints and minimizing cost.

As long as the possibilities can be accurately simulated, these algorithms can explore and learn from a vastly larger space of outcomes than will ever be possible for humans. Thus DeepMinds bold claims seem likely to be realized, and as the company says, we cant wait to see what comes next.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Ascension Athletics for June 8, 2017 – The Advocate

Posted: at 5:30 pm

Four Bulldog players land make Class 1A All-State baseball and softball

The Ascension Catholic Bulldogs earned their way to the Division IV semifinals in baseball this season with a 9-3 district mark and a 19-13 overall record. That performance helped two players earn Louisiana Sports Writers Associations All-State berths and an honorable mention for another.

The two Bulldogs selected to the first team were senior standouts and also happened to become LSU-Eunice signees. The first was pitcher Landon Clifton, who had an outstanding 10-4 record and a 1.95 ERA on the mound. The other was infielder Nick Bellina, who sported a whopping .420 batting average and 39 RBIs in his senior year. Junior Mason Zeringue earned an honorable mention.

The Lady Bulldogs made it to the quarterfinals in softball this season and put a pair of players on the Louisiana Sports Writers Associations softball squads. Infielder Ceily Grisaffe hit for an impressive .417 batting average and added 19 RBIs for her hitting totals. Utility player Isabelle Abadie hit for a .373 batting average and added 20 RBIs to make the softball squad.

In District 5-5A, first-team selections were pitchers Austin Bankert of Dutchtown and Blayne Enlow of St. Amant; catcher Jacob Thompson of East Ascension; infielders Larson Fontenot of St. Amant, Cameron Sibley of Dutchtown, Joseph Stephens of East Ascension and Jack Merrifield of Dutchtown; outfielders Zach Johnson of Dutchtown and Zane Zeppuhar of St. Amant; and utility players Noah Fontenot of East Ascension and Cameron Crawford of Dutchtown.

Second-team selections included pitchers Cade Blanchard of Dutchtown and Colin Schutz of St. Amant; catcher Reid Bouchereau of Dutchtown; infielders Kolby Blanchard and Ivan Prejean, both of St. Amant, and Preston Thrash of East Ascension; outfielders Sammy Waguespack of Dutchtown, Pat Wolfe of St. Amant and Ryan Williams of East Ascension; and utility players Brayden Caskey of Dutchtown, Tory Louis of McKinley and Reese Hebert of East Ascension. The Most Valuable Player was pitcher and LSU signee Blayne Enlow of St. Amant.

District 6-1A first-team selections included senior Dylan Hurst of Ascension Catholic and sophomore Nic Montalbano of Ascension Christian as pitchers; senior Nick Bellina and senior Ross Ponville, both of Ascension Catholic, and junior Mason Braud of Ascension Christian as infielders; Mason Zeringue of Ascension Catholic and sophomore Tyler Cambre of Ascension Christian as outfielders; and senior Payton Bahlinger of Ascension Christian, senior William Dunn of Ascension Catholic and junior Landon Ortego of Ascension Christian as utility players.

Second-team selections were junior Josh Diez of Ascension Christian and senior D.J. Giroir of Ascension Catholic as pitchers; junior Charlie Gianelloni of Ascension Catholic as an infielder; sophomore Rodney Blanchard of Ascension Catholic as an outfielder; and senior Dylan Vice of Ascension Catholic and senior Jacob Antie and sophomore Sal Montalbano, both of Ascension Christian, as utility players.

Selected to the District 5-5A first team were freshman Carly Turner of Dutchtown and freshman Alyssa Romano of St. Amant as pitchers; freshman Paige Patterson of Dutchtown as a catcher; senior McKenzie King, junior Taylor Tidwell and senior Pamela Carbo, all of St. Amant, junior Hannah Martin of Dutchtown and sophomore Rachel Ducote of East Ascension as infielders; senior Abby McKey and junior Jadyn Rumfellow, both of St. Amant, and senior Blayne Pence of Dutchtown as outfielders; junior Baylee Bourgeois of Dutchtown, junior Grace Bagwell of East Ascension and juniors Madison Hurt and Brooke Romano, both of St. Amant, as utility players; and junior Dena Lowe of Dutchtown as designated hitter.

Selected on the second team were freshman Erin Hardy of Dutchtown and sophomore Erin Nicol of East Ascension as pitchers; sophomore Chandler Guedry of St. Amant and sophomore Brynnen Gautreau of East Ascension as catchers; junior Meagan Ross of East Ascension as an infielder; sophomores Skylar Boyd and Kaylee Sharpe, both of Dutchtown, as outfielders; freshman Camille Dawsey of Dutchtown as a utility player; and freshman Jesse Allison of St. Amant as designated player.

Senior Abby McKey of the St. Amant Gators was selected Most Valuable Player while Amy Pitre of St. Amant was chosen as Coach of the Year.

District 6-1A first-team selections were eighth-grader Madison Gautreau of Ascension Christian and freshman Emily Beck of Ascension Christian as pitchers; eighth-grader Hallie Dupree of Ascension Christian and sophomore Ceiley Grisaffe of Ascension Catholic as catchers; eighth-grader Layla Thompson of Ascension Christian and juniors Alicia Canatella and Lauren Landry and sophomore Isabella Abadie, all of Ascension Catholic, as infielders; and junior Bailey Acosta and senior Carson Dunn, both of Ascension Catholic, as outfielders.

Second-team selections were freshman Angelle Theriot of Ascension Catholic as a pitcher; senior Kaley Ryan and junior Lauren Thompson, both of Ascension Christian, and junior Abagail Landry and eighth-grader Mackenzie Marroy, both of Ascension Catholic, as infielders; and senior Emily Millet of Ascension Christian and sophomore Emme Medine of Ascension Catholic as outfielders.

Most Valuable Player was sophomore Ceily Grisaffe of Ascension Catholic. Don Henry of Ascension Catholic was named Coach of the Year.

Ascension Parish has lost one of its great role models, mentors, teachers, principals and, most of all, coaches. W.J. "Butch" Little passed away on May 26.

His teaching, coaching and administrative positions spanned nearly half a century and included stints as a boys basketball coach at East Ascension and a girls basketball coach at Donaldsonville and Lutcher high schools. Coach Little had more than 750 wins during his career that spanned parts of five decades. He also was a vice principal and principal at East Ascension and served on the LHSAA's executive committee.

Little played high school basketball at French Settlement and earned a scholarship to Southeastern Louisiana University, where he had a memorable basketball career.

After college, Little accepted his first coaching and teaching role at St. Theresa of Avila in 1967. Thats where our paths crossed for the first of many times in my life, and its one Ill never forget.

Little had high expectations in the classroom and on the basketball court that some might interpret as stern at first glance. But that character trait was inspired by his love for his kids. Along with those expectations was plenty of humor and friendship highlighted by an infectious smile I can see every time I think of him.

But basketball was in his blood as a player and even more as a coach. In our ninth-grade year, the Warrior basketball team was probably a little better than average. Our starting five consisted of Kent Schexnaydre, Edgar Amedee, Jeff Lanoux, A.P. Marchand and Dennis Haydel.

The Warriors had tough opposition. The Gonzales Bulldogs probably had the best talent with Sidney Lambert, Glen Decoteau and Jerry Babin. The other team was the St. Amant Wildcats, led by Kent Melancon and Gabe Mayers. Back in the day, Gabe stood a towering 6 feet, 3 inches tall and we might as well have been playing against Shaquille ONeal.

Little had a strategy for each game and player when we played those better teams. It was awesome to see him get 110 percent out of each player because of the respect he earned from each one of us by his leadership. The St. Theresa Warriors went on to claim the junior high parish championship that season.

Coach Little went on from that first opportunity to influence generations of kids, whether a student or an athlete. Our paths crossed many more times in my life. I have a little hole in my heart right now that might ache for a little while, but its a good hurt. Butch Little, you may be gone from here, but your influence will be passed on for generations to come.

Jambalaya lunches are on sale starting at 10 a.m. Saturday at Delaunes Hardware on La. 44 to raise money for the four Ascension Parish fishing teams that qualified for the National High School Fishing Championship in Paris, Tennessee, later this summer.

Jambalaya is $7 a plate and tickets are available for a $300 gift basket.

Lyle Johnson, a writer and host of the Ascension Outdoors cable TV show, covers sports and the outdoors for The Ascension Advocate. He can be contacted at reelman@eatel.net or ascension@theadvocate.com.

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Ascension Public Schools announces three new assistant principals – The Advocate

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Ascension Parish Public Schools has hired three assistant principals who will assume their duties on July 1.

"These new administrators bring with them a wealth of knowledge and depth of experience in our school district," schools Superintendent David Alexander said.

Hope Gautreau will replace Tennille Lange at Donaldsonville Primary School as Lange becomes principal. The lifelong Ascension Parish resident has a bachelors degree with dual certification in general elementary education and special education and a masters degree in special education from Southeastern Louisiana University. Additionally, she completed educational leadership courses with Southeastern, receiving certification in 2008.

Gautreaus previous experience includes two years as a special education teacher at Gonzales Middle, 10 years as a special education and general education teacher at Gonzales Primary and School Building Level Committee facilitator at Gonzales Primary and Oak Grove Primary.

Courtney Mancuso, of Prairieville, becomes Dutchtown High Schools new assistant principal, providing additional leadership support as the size of incoming freshman classes increases. Originally from Sorrento, she holds a bachelors degree in secondary social studies and a masters degree in education from Southeastern.

Mancuso has taught sixth-grade world history at Lowery Intermediate/Middle, sixth- and eighth-grade world history and Louisiana history at Central Middle and, most recently, was an instructional coach at Dutchtown High.

East Ascension High School also created a new assistant principal role to deal with larger incoming freshman classes. Allison Brignac, originally of Bogalusa, will step into the position. She is a national board certified teacher with a bachelors degree in mathematics education from Louisiana Tech University and a masters degree in educational leadership from Southeastern.

Brignacs experience includes work as a teacher at Welsh High School in Jefferson Davis Parish and St. Amant High School, teacher and mentor teacher at Donaldsonville High, mentor teacher at Lowery Middle, teacher coach at East Ascension High and master teacher at Donaldsonville High.

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Ascension Parish School Board approves tax exemption for … – The Advocate

Posted: at 5:30 pm

DONALDSONVILLE The Ascension Parish School Board has given its approval for property tax exemptions for a manufacturer looking to build in Geismar.

Under an executive order issued by Gov. John Bel Edwards last summer, a manufacturer seeking an industrial tax exemption in the state must first get the approval of the School Board, sheriff and parish government in the area where the company hopes to build, before taking its request for a tax exemption to the state Board of Commerce and Industry.

DONALDSONVILLE The Ascension Parish School Board, Sheriff's Office and Parish Council will

The resolution the School Board approved Tuesday would provide an exemption from property tax at 100 percent for five years and at 80 percent for three years for the container manufacturer whose name hasn't been announced yet, at the request of the company.

Because of a request made last month by School Board member Robyn Penn Delaney, the resolution presented by board attorney Jeff Diez says the board "encourages that at least 50 percent" of the permanent employees of the company be residents of the parish.

Before the vote, Delaney asked Diez to change the wording to "strongly encourages."

Also on Tuesday, the School Board recognized the school district's 2017 School Nurse of the Year, Jodi Sheets.

Sheets has been a school nurse in Ascension Parish public schools for 16 years and is at St. Amant High.

The board also approved a resolution declaring a former Donaldsonville elementary school, West Ascension, which was closed in 2005, as surplus property. The board will be advertising for bids and a public sale of the school building on St. Patrick Street.

The minimum bid price for the property is $212,500, which is 85 percent of its appraised value as required by law, the resolution says.

Follow Ellyn Couvillion on Twitter, @EllynCouvillion.

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Around Ascension for June 8, 2017 – The Advocate

Posted: at 5:30 pm

Brand it Blue Day

Saturday is Brand it Blue Day, a day of volunteerism sponsored by Express Employment Professionals of Gonzales. The company is hosting a nonperishable food drive through Friday at its office, 915 S. Nickens Ave., in Gonzales.

Volunteers will host a final collection day Saturday, then gather the donations for distribution to food pantries serving the River Parishes. Monetary donations from local businesses also will be accepted.

The summertime is an especially difficult season for children who depend on the meals they receive at school, Express owner Amy Velez said. The donations we receive will help provide meals for children and their families in our community.

Repticon Baton Rouge, a reptile and exotic animal show, returns to the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. VIP entry is at 9 a.m. Saturday.

The event includes vendors offering reptile pets, supplies, feeders, cages and merchandise, live animal seminars and free prize raffles.

Cost is $10 for adults, $5 for ages 5-12 and free for children younger than 5. Tickets, as well as special offers on two-day and VIP tickets, are available at repticon.com/louisiana/baton-rouge.

Ashleigh Fuller will lead Not a #Number for ages 13-17 in St. Elizabeth Hospitals Sister Linda conference room from 10:30 a.m. to noon Monday through Wednesday.

The curriculum uses information, critical thinking and skill development to teach youth how to protect themselves from human trafficking and exploitation.

The program is free, but registration is required; call (225) 621-2906.

A vegetable garden workshop with LSU Agricultural Center and Ascension Master Gardeners is slated for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center.

The workshop features discussions on vegetable varieties planted in the demonstration gardens, insect and disease issues and controls, announcement of the 2017 4-H Youth and Adult Garden Contest winners and a biggest tomato contest.

Those wishing to enter the biggest tomato contest should bring their biggest tomato to the workshop for a weigh-in, with a winner being announced during the workshop.

Call (225) 621-5799 by Friday so organizers can get a head count.

Hopeful Baptist Church, 39067 La. 22,in Darrow is planning its first men's conference, Building Spiritual Men, from 7:30 p.m. June 16 to 9:30 a.m. June 17.

Bishop Xavier D. Madison Sr. will lead the conference.

For registration, which is $20, call (225) 247-4661 or (225) 473-3300.

Contact Darlene Denstorff by phone, (225) 388-0215 or (225) 603-1996; or email, ascension@theadvocate.com or ddenstorff@theadvocate.com. Deadline: noon Monday.

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Families rally for leukemia survivor – The Advocate

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A Facebook group for Ascension Parish mothers rallied together to provide their children an evening of fun while helping a7-year-old leukemia survivor, Paislee Townley.

Lil Bambinos Playtorium, in Gonzales, hosted children of all ages May 30. The event, which allowed children to play games and explore the center's equipment, raised about $1,000 to help pay for some of Paislees medical expenses.

Weve had an idea for a while now to have an event like this, said Lindsey Del Bosque, who helped organize Play for Paislee. We can make new friends, meet each others kids and help Paislee all at the same time.

(Play for Paislee) has been a great opportunity for the community to come together, said Derrick Taylor, Paislee'sstepfather. This community is a close-knit group that has been helping us out.

Paisleewas diagnosed in May 2016 on her sixth birthday with B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Since then, Paisleehas received chemotherapy treatments at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as its Baton Rouge affiliate.

Taylor believes Paislees diagnosis has brought their family closer. The family also includes children Alyssa, 18, and Blaize, 12.

There have been lots of tears shed through all this, but its helped us grow stronger as a family, Taylor said. Each one of us has to be strong for Paislee. We have to put aside our needs and pick up each other.

Paislee, currently in remission, still has a long journey of tests and treatments, including daily oral chemotherapy. Her mother, Courtney Taylor, said Paislee is in the final phase of her treatment plan. She added she hopes Paislee will be well enough to return to school this fall.

This is the maintenance phase of the plan, she said. But, its 120 weeks of treatment. Her last treatment is scheduled for November of 2018.

The idea for the event came from Del Bosque, according to Lil Bambinos owner Ashlee Lambeth.

I love to do this, Lambeth said. There are lots of people in this parish who want to help. Everybody is close, and we just love it.

The money raised at Lil Bambinos came from a $10 admission fee and raffles for a summer-themed basket and an LSU quilt, made by Virginia Austin and Mary Patricia Brashier.

People have been enthusiastic about helping out, especially in our moms group, Del Bosque said. "If you say somebody needs help, we jump in and are there to do whatever we can.

Donations to help defray Paislees medical expenses are being accepted at gofundme.com/22vk5pas.

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Child Advocacy Services launches weather resource – The Advocate

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Child Advocacy Services has launched Prepared Not Scared, a new educational resource for families.

With support from St. John United Way and other area partners such as United Healthcare, Northshore Community Foundation, Visually Speaking and the Greater New Orleans Foundation, the nonprofit revealed its updated community resource at the St. John the Baptist Parish Library on May 30 to an audience of community members, partners, supporters, CASA volunteers and staff.

United Healthcare is excited to be a resource partner for Prepared Not Scared," said Vanessa Simmons, community outreach specialist for United Healthcare. "United Healthcare is community, and we support Child Advocacy Services and the work they are doing for families and children in this area.

Included in the resource is educational information and ways families can prepare for unexpected emotions associated with severe weather. The new booklet introduces Sunny, a turtle with a hard shell used for protection and safety. The book gives storm information such as the difference between a watch and a warning and shares ways to communicate with children and family members regarding emergencies like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires and thunderstorms. It is designed to encourage discussions and stresses the importance of having a plan for what to do in the case of an emergency. Interactive activities and games are featured throughout the piece.

Community members can receive free copies at any Child Advocacy Services office or by calling (800) 798-1575.

Child Advocacy Services is a private, nonprofit umbrella agency providing services through the Court Appointed Special Advocates Program, Childrens Advocacy Center Program and other services supporting the mission to give voice, healing, and security to children in ten parishes including Ascension, East and West Feliciana, Livingston and Tangipahoa parishes.

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